Hi all,
Our wedding was on 5.5.13 and was a beautiful day! I wanted to take a minute to review our vendors, since they were great!
Venue: Webb Barn, Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum, Wethersfield, CT
A+
The barn and grounds are beautiful. Be aware that you need to bring in anything and everything you might need/want so if you want an all-included deal, this place isn't for you. However, I really wanted to be able to pick and choose my vendors plus we loved the barn, so this was absolutely perfect for us. The coordinator, Katie, is great and answers questions readily. She actually wasn't available on our wedding day but had a substitute there, and emailed me in advance, and the other person was very helpful as well on the day of. The place was clean and when one string of lights wouldn't light, she immediately went to find a new one. She was there from the moment we arrived to set up at 8:30am to the end of our reception/clean up at 10pm. Beautiful location, and the historic town also makes for great pictures.
Caterer: A Perfect Thyme Gourmet Catering
A++
Sharon from A Perfect Thyme was a dream to work with. She was more than a caterer, she was really a wedding coordinator. She has done a lot of weddings at the barn, which was an added bonus since she knows the ins and outs of the location and what will work best. Her staff set up everything beautifully, Sharon was available for any questions or ideas, and the food was AMAZING. They also did the bar, and that was great. Sharon will work with you to come up with the perfect menu for your budget. We did the "upscale picnic" menu with pulled pork and roasted turkey breast, and everything was absolutely delicious and beautifully prepared and presented. I could not be happier with our choice!
Flowers: Stop & Shop/Farmington Ave/West Harford (B+) and Hart's Greenhouse/Norwich CT (A+)
I ordered my bouquet, the boutonniers and corsages from Stop & Shop and found their prices to be very reasonable. All of the flowers were beautiful and fresh. The only reason I gave them a B+ was because I originally planned to order all of my flowers there, and wanted to buy bulk flowers, which I planned to cut and arrange in vases myself. Perhaps I was too easygoing, because I had some ideas of what I wanted but was open to new ones for the bulk flowers. They gave me a quote for 4 different types of flowers for the vases, which did not include any filler greens, etc. I had gone in with about 4 types of flowers in mind but said I was very open to ideas and other flowers but only received a quote for those four types. Maybe I was not clear, or maybe the person did not have the skills to come up with more creative ideas, which is fine, but the prices for the bulk flowers were also double the cost of what I paid at the greenhouse, so that was surprising.
Hart's Greenhouse was great - I wasn't able to meet with them due to my schedule but Jess handled everything over the phone, listened to my ideas, and emailed me a list of prices for the flowers I requested plus a few others that she thought would coordinate with my ideas. This was exactly what I was looking for!! In addition, the cost was 1/2 the price of the bulk flowers at Stop& Shop. Everything was beautiful and fresh. My only complaint is that the peonies did not fully open, but that is not the greenhouse's fault - just Mother Nature. Jess told me some hints to help them open more, and that worked for some of them but not all.
Photography: Allison Hopkins Photography
A+
I haven't actually received any pictures yet but Allison has put a few up on her facebook page and they are absolutely beautiful. She is extremely reasonable priced, and is wonderful to work with. She is a grad student at UCONN and has her own photography business as well, so she's pretty busy during the week. She only does digital images, which is exactly what we were looking for but if you want prints/albums, this isn't the vendor for you. We had a hard time finding a photographer that would ONLY give us the digital prints - many were offended that we didn't want albums, etc but Allison was totally fine with it. She brings an assistant and uses a photojournalistic style, which is really cool! She is the sweetest person and so easy to work with! Highly recommend.
Music: DJ Melee
A+
All the reviews about Jae are true - he's great. He has an online system where you enter all of the music you want for specific time (i.e. cake cutting/etc) and he reviews all of it and delivers perfectly. We met with him about 2 weeks before our wedding because we needed some help in coming up with ideas, and he was great. We ended up leaving the prelude/cocktail hour/dinner music completely up to him, and simply provided a list of artists we liked (as well as some specific songs, of course) and all of the music was great. People were up and dancing - everyone was raving about the DJ! He handled the music for the ceremony, which was held outside and set up a mini station for his equipment, including a wireless mic for the JOP. The only glitch was the microphone for the blessing/toasts, but as soon as it started acting up, he was right there with another one to replace it, and apologized profusely to us at the end of the night - it wasn't a big deal at all but it was nice of him to say something. Highly recommend!
Cupcakes: NoRA Cupcake Company, Middletown CT
A+
Delicious! We actually had the cupcake truck come to the wedding. It was announced and people could go outside and get their cupcakes from the truck, which was really cool - but might not be for everyone, so they also do cupcake displays as well. The cupcakes were delicious and we were able to have 6 different flavors for guests to choose from - which is really hard to pick since they have SO MANY flavors and all sound wonderful! In addition, they were able to make ALL the cupcakes gluten free, so I, and other guests, could enjoy any flavor we wanted without worrying about being sick. No one knew they were gluten free - which is a huge accomplishment in the world of gluten free baking. Easy to work with and a big hit!
Makeup/Hair - all done by private people so I can't comment here.
Honeymoon: Valentin Imperial Maya, Playa de Secreto (Cancun area), Mexico:
A+
A beautiful resort. Wonderful staff, excellent food and drink - true luxury.
Phew - I think that's it. A wonderful day made even better with great vendors. If anyone has any questions about the vendors I worked with, please let me know and I will be happy to answer them.